Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic component including a helical coil composed of coil patterns which are provided on the principal surfaces of a plurality of stacked insulator layers, respectively, and are connected in series in a stacking direction.
Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, an electronic component 500 has been known which, as shown in FIGS. 11 and 12, includes a helical coil 503 composed of coil patterns 502 which are provided on the principal surfaces of a plurality of stacked magnetic material layers 501 (insulator layers), respectively, and are connected in series in a stacking direction (see, e.g., Patent Document 1). The helical coil 503 configured as described above is surrounded by the magnetic material, thus causes less leakage of magnetism, and has good coil characteristics with high inductance. Therefore, there have been proposed electronic component modules, for example, various power modules such as charging circuits, DC-DC converters, and the like, and various high-frequency circuit modules, for example, various communication modules such as Bluetooth (registered trademark) modules, wireless LAN modules, and the like, antenna switch modules, and the like, all of which include the electronic component 500 including the helical coil 503. FIG. 11 is a perspective view showing the internal structure of an existing electronic component and FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view of the electronic component in FIG. 11.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-3829 (paragraphs 0017 to 0020, FIGS. 2 and 3, etc.)